In This Article:
Key Insights
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Institutions' substantial holdings in Balfour Beatty implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
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A total of 15 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership
Every investor in Balfour Beatty plc (LON:BBY) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 87% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).
Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Balfour Beatty.
See our latest analysis for Balfour Beatty
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Balfour Beatty?
Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.
Balfour Beatty already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Balfour Beatty, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Balfour Beatty. Our data shows that BlackRock, Inc. is the largest shareholder with 8.0% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.9% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.6% by the third-largest shareholder. Furthermore, CEO Leo Quinn is the owner of 0.7% of the company's shares.
A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 15 shareholders have a combined ownership of 52% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.
Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.